JONES: Keith deal means time is now for Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland
Holland #Holland
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The clock was ticking with protected players to be declared Friday for the Seattle Kraken expansion draft and, obviously, the Oilers had made the decision Caleb Jones was not going to be protected
Author of the article:
Terry Jones 
Edmonton Oilers’ Alex Chiasson (39) and Connor McDavid (97) shake hands with Chicago Blackhawks’ Duncan Keith (2) and Jonathan Toews (19) following the NHL qualifying round in Edmonton on August 7, 2020. Photo by Jason Franson /The Canadian Press, file Article content
Like a long-ago provincial election campaign of Peter Lougheed, it announces one thing: “NOW!”
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Despite winning only one of eight Stanley Cup playoff games in the last two years, Edmonton Oilers general manager Ken Holland just announced that the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl Stanley Cup windows are now wide open.
And trading defenceman Caleb Jones and a third-round draft pick for two-time Stanley Cup champion Duncan Keith, with two years remaining on his $11.1-million contract with the Chicago Blackhawks, announces no more tinkering while wearing the set of salary cap handcuffs he predecessor left for him.
Holland certainly didn’t get the deal he wanted.
You should know that the cap hit is $11.1 million over two years, but owner Daryl Katz is paying $3.6 million in actual dollars over the next two years.
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So, it’s not like a free-agent big bucks payday for Keith, himself, a sure-thing Hockey Hall of Famer who won the Norris Trophy in 2009-10 and again in 2013-14, while also winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2015.
Holland is obviously betting Keith has enough left in him to come close to doing what an aging Chris Chelios did after acquiring him for the Detroit Red Wings and going on to win a pair of Stanley Cups.
But it is $5.5 million of a salary cap hit and I’m not sure how many people would figure Keith to be a $5.5-million hockey player at this stage of his career.
Not to be devalued here, however, is that Keith wants to be here and he’s hungry to be here.
He waived his no-movement clause and effectively campaigned to be here.
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All that said, you have to figure Chicago GM Stan Bowman got everything he wanted.
There was no salary retention by Chicago on the deal.
And the Oilers GM didn’t get to dump his much-maligned goaltender, Mikko Koskinen, and the final year of his $4.5-million-a-year contract, either.
Now for sure, you have to figure Holland is going to have to buy that out and/or that of James Neal. Indeed, Neal is as good as gone at this moment.
So, make no mistake. Holland put his butt way out the window on this one to get the defenceman, who turns 38 on Friday.
But the clock was ticking with protected players to be declared Friday for the Seattle Kraken expansion draft and, obviously, the Oilers had made the decision Jones was not going to be protected.
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He would almost certainly be the player Seattle would have taken. So, the timing basically put Holland on the hot seat to do the deal now.
The trouble with having an opinion on this deal for your average Edmonton fan is that the coronavirus pandemic 56-game schedule featured a Canadian division with play involving only the seven franchises north of the closed Canada-USA border.
Few fans had the opportunity to watch many games involving the Blackhawks on Canadian networks. And the Hawks were so bad, not many people would have wanted to watch them anyway.
Holland never once crossed the border, so he didn’t have even one live look at Keith this year.
His last look, however definitely was live and in person the year previous, when Chicago upset Edmonton three-games-to-one in the best-of-five qualification series to proceed to the traditional best-of-seven playoff series. All those games, of course, were played in the Hub City bubble in Rogers Place in Edmonton.
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Obviously, Archie Henderson’s Oilers pro scouting staff watched a significant slice of Keith’s season. And the eventual evaluation of this deal may end up putting some of their jobs on the line.
Essentially, Holland is hoping for the Chris Pronger effect from GM Kevin Lowe’s acquisition of the defenceman who played a massive role in the Oilers getting to Game 7 of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final.
Not many people would compare Keith at this stage to a prime-of-his-career Pronger that season.
Pronger, obviously, left at the end of that season. And the entire team that quite likely would have won a sixth Stanley Cup if goaltender Dwayne Roloson hadn’t been injured in Game 1 of the Final, collapsed like a house of cards to begin the decade of darkness. At least when Keith departs, the Oilers ought not collapse.
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There is no lack of developing defencemen in the organization, including Even Bouchard, Philip Broberg and Dmitri Samorukov. The developing D should get plenty of playing opportunities with mentorship under Keith because the Oilers certainly won’t be burning him out in the season.
There will, no doubt, be plenty of pressure on Keith to perform but the proof will be in the playoffs.
And Holland is gambling big time on him to become a leader in helping to get McDavid and Draisaitl there NOW.
I think it’s a bad bet. But I also think it’s his best bet to make it happen now.
E-mail: tjones@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @byterryjones
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